Byron Bay is located at the easternmost point on the Australian continent. It's famous around the world as a backpacker haven. There's a lot of things to do here: surfing, diving, snorkeling, mountain biking, sky diving, paragliding, mountain and rainforest trekking, and a good night life. It's a really small town, too! The population is only apparently 4000 people, but I don't know how many backpackers there are in addition to that. It's definitely a lot, lemme tell you!
I had one chief goal for myself in Byron Bay -- to make the best thirtieth birthday for myself that I could make while I was separated from my family and friends. I would do that in several ways -- by making lots of new friends while I'm here, and to go surfing and skydiving!
The first hostel that I checked into was the Cape Byron Lodge. It was the only place that was available to book from the internet -- and the reviews showed that it wasn't a particularly great hostel. I knew that Byron Bay really fills up on the weekends with people on road trips from Sydney and Brisbane, so for the weekend I would just stay in the dirty hostel and find myself a place to stay for the rest of the week once I got there.
The Cape Byron Lodge was, indeed, a dirty hostel. Lots of spiders and bugs everywhere, mold on the shower curtain, smelly kitchen, and the manager and his mates smoking most of the day nearby my room. It was also about a twenty minute walk from the centre of town -- pretty inconvenient! I would spent two nights there (Saturday and Sunday). After that, I booked myself into the Cape Byron YHA (Youth Hostel Association) which was much closer to the centre of town. YHAs are supposed to maintain a certain standard and are generally known as good hostels. It was a bit more expensive (AU$32/night), but definitely worth it.
After only being in the hostel for about an hour, I learned a brand new word: goone. That's the word they use for cheap wine in a box in Australia. Rumour has it that it's made from sawdust, cigarette butts and other unmentionable things. After tasting it, I'm pretty sure that its just made from grapes like normal wine -- just cheap stuff. It's generally the cheapest alcohol you can get, so a lot of backpackers drink it more than other things. It's much cheaper than the cheap beers, even. Sadly, beer is expensive in Australia :( I might have to put aside my beer fetishest principles and start drinking wine. Alas.
On Saturday night I went out with my roommates, Eamon (from Scotland), and Ann (from England), Janie (from England) and another guy who's name escapes me (also from England) from Cape Byron Lodge. We went to the Beach Hotel for drinks then to La La Land for dancing. Good times! We stayed there drinking until like 1 or 2 in the morning. I didn't get a lot of sleep that night, though. I was still getting used to the transition, and sleeping on the top bunk isn't that fun.
At that hostel, the managers seem to own a few snakes. On Sunday morning the snakes were out and about and people were taking turns holding them. It was pretty cool to hold a snake. They have soft skin and are pretty wriggly. It wrapped itself around the back of my neck and slithered down my arm. Their movements are muscular and feel weird against my skin.
After that, I got myself sorted out in Byron Bay. I make my booking for the YHA, I bought a SIM Card for my cell phone, booked my surfing and skydiving trips, bought some groceries and used the internet for a while. That night, I didn't out to drink, but instead ate dinner at the hostel and sat on the outside patio talking and drinking goone with my new roommates, Janni (from Sweden) and Alexia (from California, USA). There was this guy twirling fire and we watched him for a while. Pretty cool.
We ended up playing some drinking games (with goone, of course) on the patio with some guys from Quebec and some girls from Switzerland. I still decided to go to bed a bit earlier, though, since I knew that I was going to be skydiving in the morning!
On Monday morning, I checked out of the Cape Byron Lodge and walked to the Cape Byron YHA. My pickup for skydiving was supposed to be at 9:30 AM, but ended up being at 12:40 PM after the weather had cleared. In the meanwhile, I chatted with people on the hostel patio. It was pushed back because of crap weather (of course, it was raining on and off!). It was pretty much the craziest thing I've ever done. Beforehand, I wasn't really nervous or excited or scared. But as that little plane climbed up higher and higher into the sky, the nervousness started to set in. There were four other people jumping with me. Each jumper had an instructor harnessed to their backs. Having the instructor was very reassuring. My instructor was J.J. from Israel. They jumped several times each day and they've been doing it for years. Also, the guy would make sure you didn't have a chance to chicken out! As we approached 14,000 feet (4.2 km) over the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast from Byron Bay, the earth seemed to get farther and farther away. The plane took about 15 minutes to get enough altitude. Inside the tiny cabin of the plane there were three lights: a red one labeled "1 MILE", a yellow one labeled "1/2 MILE", and green one labeled "DROP ZONE". When the red light came on, one of the instructors opened up the side hatch of the plane and a blast of cold wind took all of the regular air from the cabin. The plane slowed down to 80 miles per hour and the instructors checked and secured all the harnesses and equipment again. The yellow light came on about 15 seconds later. My ears were popping like crazy. I checked my goggles again. The ground was so far away. Crap. It was all feeling so real now. Then the green light came on and we shuffled on our bums to the hatch. I was the fourth person of the five people to jump. Crappity crap crap.
Suddenly, it was happening. The wind took my breath away. It was so so so cold. The earth was rushing up at me. Soon, J.J. tapped my shoulder and I was allowed to start waving my arms. I didn't order a cameraman to jump with us, so I just waved them around aimlessly and tried to enjoy the terror. After 70 seconds of free fall (though it felt more like 10 seconds!) J.J. opened the chute and to catch our descent. He expertly guided our fall back to the airport where we took off. I think it only took like three minutes to get back to earth. The whole time, J.J. was steering us in big circles towards the ground. As we kept turning around, my stomach started turning in its own little circles. Regardless, I was grinning the whole time. It was a fantastic feeling. It was amazing. Everyone needs to try this! Finally, we landed (in a puddle of course -- though there were a lot of them and they were hard to avoid). After a few minutes for my stomach to settle, I talked excitedly with the other jumpers. Everyone agreed that it was awesome. We watched the videos of some of the other jumpers. They were so cool. I was sad that I didn't get one -- but they were so expensive -- like AU$200 -- and the jump itself was AU$299. One of the jumpers there, Dominic (from England) would be in Melbourne at the same time I would be. We exchanged phone numbers so we could meet up there for drinks.
Yep! That's me with the yellow chute floating to the ground!
That night, I went out for drinks at the famous Cheeky Monkey bar in Byron Bay. It was the night before thirtieth birthday, and I had hyped it up enough that I found some fun people to go out with me -- Emma (from Sweden), Laura (from Wales), and Kayleigh (from England). They were good drinking and dancing buddies! Cheekies is a party bar that is open until 3 AM six nights a week and caters exclusively to travellers. They check ID at the door. If you're a local, you don't get in. The bar reminds me very much of the Bombshelter at the University of Waterloo -- small, dark, crowded, and cheesy (but fun) music. At midnight, the DJ happily told everyone that it was my birthday (I think it was Kayleigh who got the DJ to do that -- thanks!!). We drank beer and danced until about 1:30 AM. After that, we got some pies and walked back to the hostel to pass out. It was an exhausting day, but a good start to my birthday!
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Rob Szumlakowski
Byron Bay, Australia
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